Human Position: Exploring Musée des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden

Musée des Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.


Human Position

Just as a mythology painting is more than a retelling of the legend, “Musée des Beaux Arts,” by W.H. Auden is more than a description of a work of art. Under close scrutiny the two stanza poem is more than a reflection on Pieter Brueghel’s painting, the “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” as seen by the poet in 1938 in a Brussels museum (“Musée Deux Beaux” 1). Throughout the twenty-one lines Auden captures a myriad of “human positions.” The main premise is the simple, yet heart aching, cyclical style of humanity to endure to the point of ignoring fantastic surrounding events and Auden captures the apathy of generations in his brief verses which are a written facsimile of a painting offering a similar observation.

Auden was great at describing the painting and its message so completely in so short a poem. The painting “Fall of Icarus” was inspired by the Greek myth of a boy with wax wings who fell from the sky after not listening to his father and flying too close to the sun, causing his unpredictable appendages to melt. The thought that Brueghel received from this tale was more than the simple lesson of obeying one’s parents. He saw the simple concept of how even a boy falling from the sky couldn’t get surrounding country folk and sailing ships to stop what they were doing and even notice this spectacular event. Looking at the painting the eye is first drawn to the red clothed farmer. Auden must have noticed this and he is described in the poem, “Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may,/ Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,/ but for him it was not an important failure.” He ends with a melancholy note after a caesura, “the expensive delicate ship that must have seen,/ Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,/ had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on” (Auden 92). How many times has humanity let something awful or even amazing happen, and go on as if it were nothing much at all?

Although the form occasionally rhymes it is not specific- the prosody is as natural as the thought trail of an observer at a museum. It is really beautiful the way the lines go through the mind of the painter or museum visitor- and then lead into sweeping reflections on the position of man. The poet contemplates the painting and immediately applies the scenes to relatable events, people young and old who are relatively satisfied with the status quo. Many scholars agree that the painting is signifying the capacity of mankind to ignore surrounding events. Biographer Fred Stern extrapolates that Auden, “is writing about the disregard of bystanders who turn their backs with unconcern when something tragic happens around them” (Stern). Perhaps an even more reaching interpretation is that of Hsuan Hsu, who believes,
“Musée des Beaux Arts” provides a despondent criticism of the way museums remove art... from its natural environment..... The museum-goer who sees a dozen paintings in a matter of minutes cannot truly be said to mourn for the subjects of these paintings; the best he can do is to be conscious of his neglect, to mourn the impossibility of mourning. (Hsu)
This is a contemporary and interesting take on the poem. To say that this poem single-handedly condemns most, if not all, modern museums seems a little extreme- but is definitely something to really think about.

The poem addresses different generations, classes, and even species of life. The first three lines pay homage to the wisdom of the “Old Masters”, capitalized on purpose to denote reputation. He writes “About suffering they were never wrong/…how well they understood” (Auden 92). When read aloud the whole opens up almost cheerily. The beginning mentions a human’s position, not human suffering. He compares the older generation waiting for a “miraculous birth” of a Messiah, or maybe the end of the world. They are contrasted with the youth who still had a lot of living left to do, “Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating/ On a pond at the edge of the wood” (Auden 92). The “it” was not only reference to some prophesized event, but to any upheaval that might interrupt their daily revelry. He even alludes to the beasts’ reluctance to heed change, “Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse/ scratches its innocent behind on a tree” (Auden 92). These lines are extraordinary in setting up the opposite effect of humanity’s blunder of not only ignoring the appalling, but also missing the miracles of this life. Each line has the power to present a vignette of life, capturing time and space within a small form, the epitome of poetry. Auden is a master and if the first line reflects his own feelings, he does understand suffering.

“Musée des Beaux Arts” is a great example of modern poetry using the past as inspiration for reflecting on current events. After the birth of Christ life had continued, and even after his crucifixion, the world went on. These events were turning points in history, but the people who lived during them were perhaps not as involved as their offspring were. This poet lived through from 1907-1973, and saw tremendous acts of violence and startling world changes throughout his life (Stern). These were times of tremendous changes and tragedies in the world, and since then the pace of progress and technology has expanded exponentially. How many people, throughout changes, have still remained the same, hardly observant of their own present time?



Works Cited

Auden, W.H., “Musée des Beaux Arts.” 100 Best-Loved Poems. Ed. Philip Smith. New
York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995. 92. Print.

Brueghel, Pieter. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. 1558 Musees royaux des Beaux-
Arts de Belgique, Brussels. WebMuseum Paris. Web. 9 Feb. 2010.

Hsu, Hsuan L. "Auden's MUSEE DES BEAUX ARTS." Explicator 57.3 (1999): 166.
MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCO. Web. 7 Feb. 2010.

“Musée des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden.” Classic Poetry Pages. Lemon8 design &
development., 2003. Web. 9 Jan. 2010

Stern, Fred. “Auden’s Mirror: His World at 100.” World and I, 2007 General OneFile.
Web. 7 Feb. 2010.